Alcatraz

This is a show that shows all the same sort of promise and excitement that Prison Break showed a few years back. Sadly, with the network axing it before we even get a sniff of a conclusion, there is little point in watching this.

Over zealous American Network bosses doing what they do worst - judging shows on the dollar bills in their pockets. No wonder the USA doesn't have the same cult shows that the UK produces so regularly. It helps to keep up the poor reputation of American Television though.

If you have nothing better to do, then watch this - but I warn you, you'll be disappointed when the series ends abruptly and leaving you wanting more.

Interesting that so many people are comparing this unfavorably to "Lost". I actually hated "Lost"… well, past the third or fourth episode, anyway, when it started collapsing under its own weight and stopped making any kind of sense at all. "Alcatraz", I liked… I already knew it had been canceled and wouldn't have an ending when I started streaming episodes, like with "Carnivale", but it was good enough that I knew I really wanted to see as much of it as was ever going to exist. Generally the supernatural and/or JJ Abrams isn't my cup of tea, but I thought this show was extremely well done. The cast is top-notch and the premise really grips the viewer. I'm sorry they never got a chance to wrap it up.

...not that that's a bad thing.

Besides the fact that Sam Neill really should give up on any hope of mounting a believable American accent, the premise of the show is intriguing enough -- before Alcatraz ended operation as a prison, all of the inmates and staff vanished, kind of like a Philadelphia experiment on an island gone even more than wrong.

The execution (ha! funny pun, not), at least in the pilot, perhaps didn't do as much justice to the plot as I would have liked, but at the end of the pilot I was left wanting more, despite Sam Neill's dodgy accent. The rest of the acting was competent, and the entire program seemed a bit reminiscent of previous time-travel sci-fi shows such as 7 Days. It has good pacing and you're unlikely to be bored by it.

It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

This is the second Lost-type show to spin up this year and it's not the best. It borrows heavily from cop/buddy movies ("He killed my partner! I want revenge!"), Prison Break, Quantum Leap, and typical present day Vancouver syfy/horror serials for the pre-teen bunch. The characters, especially the escaped criminals, are more like comic book caricatures than real people. It uses the same techniques as Lost and Once Upon a Time to slowly reveal its mysteries. Unfortunately it doesn't have any profound or compelling theme motivating the story, like redemption or the nature of good and evil in people. The acting in the regular cast is good, partially because most of the actors (Neil and Garcia) have already played characters exactly like the ones they're doing here. The main problem with the show is that, like in Prison Break, each new tidbit of the big mystery they reveal makes it seem just that much more cheesy and far-fetched, instead of inspiring or enlightening. It's just not special.

(-) The series started well, but with a very quick and not convincing empathy between Sarah Jones (Rebecca Madsen) and Jorge García (Diego Soto); besides the acting of this two lacks of something that i not quite understand. The music may not make much sense, sometimes adding to much music can be uncomfortable even when we know it is part of the process.

(+) There is a good performance by Jeffrey Pierce (Jack Sylvane) and an acceptable of our Jurassic friend San Neil (Emerson Hauser). The prison looks great, it was about time we get a series of this particular place, although i don't think we're going to see Al Capone.

P: Hurley goes from island to island.